prisoners by any other name
by Elizabeth Blossom
Summary: Aerys makes the Lord Paramount's send their spare heir to King's Landing. Everyone knew it wasn't going to end well. Crack and will follow Ned throughout his childhood in King's Landing.
1. Ned

Based on this kink meme prompt:

Increasingly paranoid about the loyalty of his lords, Aerys decrees that each of the major houses shall send a child (the eldest that is not the heir) to be a companion to the young Prince Rhaegar. Thus Ned, Catelyn, Stannis, Cersei, Euron Greyjoy, Elia Martell and Denys Arryn all grow up in the Mad King's Court - how does this change things?

I added Mina Tyrell. Mace had two sisters and we don't know which one was elder, but since her youngest is the same age as Margaery and Mace's other sister has no children mention except that she is pregnant, I decided that she was older. I've also taken out Euron as I've edited, since while we don't know when Maron Greyjoy, Balon's second son, was born, it's pretty reasonable to assume he could have been a year younger than Lyanna. (That would make him eight years older than Asha, and eleven years older than Theon. He would have been twenty-one during the Greyjoy Rebellion then.)

Lyanna does not sound four, so any help would be loved.

**ETA:** I've made her six now, but she doesn't even sound that.

* * *

"Why do you have to _goooo_?" Lyanna whined as she held on tightly to Ned, and though Ned knew he should tell her to stand up and like a big girl, like a good brother should, all he wanted to do was wrap his arms around Lyanna and never let her go. He loved her the best out of all his siblings and he didn't really care anymore if anyone knew it.

"Because King Aerys wants the second heir to all the Lord Paramount's in King's Landing. It's a great honor. No king has ever done something like this before," Ned told her, somehow the words coming out around the lump in his throat. Lyanna narrowed her eyes. She was only six years old, but somehow she knew when something didn't seem right and nothing seemed right about this, their father seemed too worried.

"I'm coming with you," she said suddenly and stubbornly. Ned sighed. He wished nothing more than for Lyanna to come with him, but if this was truly something more, some sort of show of power for Aerys, he wanted her nowhere near King's Landing.

"You can't come, Lya. You need to stay here at Winterfell."

"Why?" she asked, and Ned quickly tried to think of something to say, something that Lyanna will understand. Luckily, he thought of it.

"Because you need to be the Stark at Winterfell."

Lyanna frowned. "What?"

"Yes! I'm going to King's Landing, Brandon's in Barrowtown, and Benjen will fostered somewhere when he's my age. Father will be here of course, but he could be called away on a moment's notice. You need to be here, to show that the North will always have a Stark like they will always have Winterfell."

Lyanna looked at her brother for a minute before she nodded, seeing the logic. "Fine." Then, wondering new things like she always did, she asked, "Who else is going to be there? Do you know?"

Ned had memorized everything he could about them. "There's seven others besides me. Maron Greyjoy, Catelyn Tully, Denys Arryn, Cersei Lannister, Mina Tyrell, Stannis Baratheon, and Elia Martell. Catelyn, Stannis, and Cersei are younger than me by one, two, and three years respectively, and Maron is five. Elia is older than me by six, Mina by nine, and Denys by thirteen. There was issues with Denys Arryn, because he's not from the main Arryn line, but after the heir Elbert there's no more men from that line. They decided to marry him to Lord Arryn's sister's eldest daughter though and with that marriage, he became second in line. I think she's only thirteen now though, so she's not coming with him."

Lyanna's lips quirked into a smile as she heard Ned recite all this information. "Got it."

Ned laughed. He was glad that she was no longer talking about going to King's Landing, though he wished they could figure out some way to make it work.

Lyanna had another question for him. "When will you get to come home?"

Ned bit his lip. "I don't know. The King never said. We're just going there for now."

Lyanna looked at him with big gray eyes. "Please come home soon."

Ned hugged her. "I'll try, Lya. I'll really try."

"The lone wolf never makes it alone," Lyanna said, tears building in her voice. "That's what Mama always said. We have to be a pack, but how are we going to do that if we're apart?"

Ned couldn't help but wonder the same thing. He hated the thought of King's Landing, the south, these people that he's never heard of but they were about to become something like prisoners together because Ned had heard rumors about the king. He had heard rumors that the king was not alright, that he was not sane.

He had heard rumors that the king liked to _burn_ people and while his father reassured him that they weren't true, he saw the gleam of worry in Rickard Stark's eyes.

Ned saw that there was truth to those rumors.


	2. Cersei

I'm super sorry about the long wait on this and my other stories! I'm trying to get back into the writing groove!

* * *

Cersei looked at the people next to her. They were the second heirs to the kingdoms and she was making mental notes on all of them.

The boys were simple. Maron Greyjoy was a little boy with a snotty nose who had attached himself to Eddard Stark, who was trying to engage Stannis Baratheon in conversation and Denys Arryn apparently found something amusing about it. They were nothing of importance, and Cersei didn't care much about them anyway.

The girls were a different matter. Every girl here was a girl the prince could fall in love with, a girl that could make him pass over Cersei and want to marry them instead. Catelyn Tully, Elia Martell, Mina Tyrell, they were making polite conversation and anyone of them could all the Queen one day when Cersei knows it should be her. That's what her father had told her and Cersei believed him.

They were standing outside of the throne room, ready to meet the king as soon as he finished with what other business he was doing in there. Eddard Stark had asked her what he was like, but Cersei had been forced to admit that she had never met the king. In fact, she had never been to King's Landing. Still, her father was Hand and that meant the only person with more power in the Seven Kingdoms was the king himself, and she made sure to tell him that. Eddard Stark had just looked at her with a smile on his face and told her that she reminded him of his sister. Cersei had told him that he was nothing like her brother.

Denys Arryn had laughed at that and Cersei wondered if her father could do anything to him.

Prince Rhaegar was in the throne room too, she knew. Her father had told her to make a good impression on him, to have him fall in love with her. Cersei did not intend to disappoint her father. One day she would be Queen and one day her son would be King. Of course, she wouldn't just have a son, she would have a daughter that would become Queen after her.

Cersei would do that for Prince Rhaegar.

She would do that for herself.

She would do that for her father.

As if she had called him, her father walked out of the throne room, casting a critical eye on them all, except for Cersei herself of course. Her mother had specially instructed her on what to do today, on how not to say a thing in front of the king but to watch everything.

Cersei took a deep breath as they slowly waited to meet the royal family. Her family was counting on her to make them proud. She stood up straight and waited.

The doors opened after a few minutes and her father walked through them. His sharp eyes looked over them all as the other children situated themselves and stopped talking. Except for Cersei. She had been perfect since the moment she arrived and she saw that her father appreciated it.

"The King is ready to see you," her father began. "I am sure that all of you will bring honor to your families and your regions." Tywin Lannister looked at Cersei when he said that.

"You are ready to see him, no matter how you look. You cannot keep the king waiting, or you _will_ regret it." Cersei didn't know why, but Eddard Stark paled.


End file.
